On entering the dining-room at Evercreech, I found company assembled. I had not been warned, and I was not introduced. I came in late, and took my seat at the table quietly, being placed between Mr Pugsley and a lady whom I did not know. I learned, however, in due course, that she was a Mrs Dalston, who, with her husband, also present, was a new-comer in the neighbourhood. The two had taken the Lone Farm, a decent but rather decayed property situated on the outskirts of Market Grazing, and foolishly reputed to be haunted. But it was inexpensive--perhaps because of its reputation--and fully adequate to the needs of a childless couple. The only other guest was, to my pleasure, Sir Maurice Carnac, who had earlier shown me friendship, and who was down somewhere in Hampshire for the shooting. But he looked little capable of shouldering a gun, and was altogether sadly altered from my memory of him, having but lately, as I learned, recovered from a paralytic stroke, whose passing had left him much debilitated. He lay sunk in his chair, like a heap of human ashes, and with all the old fire of roguery smouldering low in him. But he seemed to awaken suddenly on my entrance, and looking across at me as I sat down, treated me to a leer and wink. “Hillo, Charlie, my boy!” he chuckled. “What sport with the girls, hey!” Consternation sat on every face. My lord, looking much perturbed, bent to the old rascal, and enlightened him. “Gaskett, Carnac; Gaskett!” he said. “You remember Richard Gaskett?” “Hey!” The old man sat up. What link of memory had slipped in him, obliterating a whole score of years? “Richard, hey?” he said, immensely sly. “I know, I know. The lovely one’s pledge--earnest of widowed respectability. But mum, mum, my boy--I know. What days, hey!” The soup engaged and silenced him--at least in everything but its absorption. It was some moments before the talk could find itself an embarrassed vent. But Sir Maurice brightened as he fed. Good fare was the natural aliment to that impoverished soil. He had only wandered and lost himself when hungry. In a little he had forgotten all about his _balourdise_, and was paying senile compliments along the table to his hostess.